Review: District 9

I just caught the midnight showing of District 9. I never make the midnight show of a movie unless I am really geeked up about it, and this was a movie I was geeked up for. I think the last midnight show I caught was Phantom Menace. Like that movie, District 9 disappointed me greatly. The movie starts off telling you pretty much what the trailer tells you. Aliens came to Earth, lost their leadership and are living in District 9. Humans attempt to evict them to another spot (District 10), putting a damper on a plan for one of the aliens to help his race get off the planet.

After all this story is layed out for you for what seems like an hour and a half, finally the action starts. Of course, the bad guys shoot 8 million rounds and never hit. The good guys fire once and hit every target they aim for. This makes a movie gun battle really boring. The special effects are cool for a bit, but then they get old. You can only see so many heads liquify before it’s just not new anymore.

There comes a point where an awesome mech is utilized by the aliens. I got excited for a bit, expecting the movie to shine. Again I was disappointed. It seemed as though last half hour was spent watching a highly technical mech weapon running while being fired at without retaliation. It makes me want to scream at the screen “You’re in a cool robot weapon! FIRE BACK!” Eventually the mech does, but it’s not worth the wait. There weren’t enough cool explosions, the shootout is badly coregraphed and once again the good guys are able to hit everything with one shot.

There really isn’t an ending to this movie either, which got to me a bit also. They wanted to make sure to leave it open for a District 10 sequel. All around, it wasn’t worth the midnight trip or the $7. Maybe you should catch it on cable while you clean your house.